164. How to Build a Personal Brand People Give a Sh*t about w/ Oren John

21:01I think that's way harder. And do you think that is video specifically? Like, is video the thing that creators and brands need to be pouring? Yeah, because it's like, anything with a moat, anything where it's like, okay. Explain that, explain the moat theory. So the idea that, can anyone else make this, right? Because they will. And then how hard is it? And the harder it is, and can they make it? Like, the more time you have before it becomes less saturated, less powerful. and like i look at this like i have people that like clone my content they use my same concepts these my same hooks they use my same whatever and you can do that for like marketing educational green screen content you don't need to have my background my history i have very little there will be people who are funnier hotter smarter than me who can then just basically copy it and so that had a moat for a certain amount of time but then it was over so it's like all right what can't they do now all right well they can't travel especially the way i travel like i can go to china and people will bring me to the depths of the where people make the lab diamonds because like i I am connected like that.

21:53And I was like, all right, now I have that. Eventually, people will probably catch up there. So what's the next thing with the moat? And so I always just look at it, like even if you do have a carousel, what is that production level thing or that value-driven thing that someone else couldn't just copy with text? And that's much harder than it is in video. I mean, look at the moat of someone like Becca Bloom, where it's like she has such a prosperous, she's so rich, has all this stuff. No one can catch up with it. No one's gonna be like, oh, I can just get there tomorrow. Her moat is like basically infinite.

22:17Have you seen her stuff? No, Crocodile's in the moat though,

22:20Oren John:is what I'm hearing, dude. Becca Bloom is unbelievably wealthy. Okay. But she makes content that she's not trying to, like she flaunts her wealth because it's in her content, but it's not like, how would you explain her? Yeah, it's just, she's just living such a life of opulence. And she's so earnestly trying to engage you like just about normal stuff, you know? Like, hey, I'm making dinner, but I have to be making dinner with my Christoffel egg and like with my cat's caviar. And, but like, and that's the motive. No one's, no one can go replicate that lifestyle, right? Yeah. That's what, I mean, that's also what made like narra smith's shit so crazy the kitchen look crazy the ingredients are not just like yeah their family's crazy we're gonna make licorice from scratch and so you can't so again like the mode is super high even i look at like thor wood chopping guy it's like cool do you got a tree you got axe are you charismatic it's a lot of things you gotta be yoked but all those things kind of add up to that moat and so i look at like and you can have moats from intelligence and formats and cleverness and generalness as well uh and like unique ideas but that's where i feel like carousels has the least moat do you believe a creator can be both value and entertaining?

23:20100%. I think that's a skill you kind of have to have. Well, that's where I look at. Like my biggest series is this product versus brand series I do where I identify a category. I'll be like, I'm doing fragrances in like two days where it's like, all right, are you buying it because it's worth money or you're buying it because you're buying into the branding? But like there's some value there because people have to think critically about marketing and branding and campaigns, but it's entertainment because I'm like talking shit and making jokes. And like that's peak content for me because it's both because people are learning something and they're laughing or they're getting angry.

23:45And so like, So I always look at like, that's like your top of funnel. Ideally is that combination of it. I think also people need to be multifaceted. So many value creators are so focused on value that they don't have a personality and no one cares about you. I think that's why like my personality is polarized and not everyone agrees with it necessarily, but it's why I can command a lot more people to an event than like a just a purely value driven creator because people like assume it's going to be interesting or cool.

24:08Oren John:If someone is just in that value based content and they want to kind of get into the entertainment space do you have any tips for how to kind of merge those worlds just do skits like i started with skits i would just whenever i was with another creator we'd always do a skit so i did a skit with zach kravitz who's another like very serious creator yeah uh and we'd never done anything funny at all we like you know we just did a like a max for crack style like skit about starting a brand it got like hell of use um but i was like skits is the easiest way to show people you have personality and i've done skits now with ashwin i i'm always trying to like find that if something's funny because then it's like okay these people don't take themselves too seriously you see another side and skits are so easy to create because they're all format they're all like okay i see this person did that and they make a joke and they look like this at the end and just do it probably i mean that is what's performed the best for any sort of branded content we've done yeah it's a it's a skit of sorts i mean helps that we're just hilarious yeah that also helps just having that to sprinkle in once ever even it's like once every two weeks like that opens the floodgate because then people like oh i kind of want to know a little bit more about it you know and then there's like the vlog element of like a lot of people like hey my day in my life isn't that interesting i'm like that i'm like on fucking zoom and pacing about angrily on the phone like nine hours a day.

25:09It's not that exciting. But like if you look at, okay, well, how do I present that? And like, but if I say it like that, all of a sudden it became funny. And it's just like come with me for a day to like pace around nine times, like rep four SIGs and like be on Zoom, you know?

25:19Oren John:Another format that has gained a lot of popularity is building in public. Yeah. Do you feel like it's played out at this point? I do. Okay. I think you can still succeed. Again, anything that's played out, you can still have some incredible take on it and do it. But I don't think it's that exciting to consumers anymore. I feel like two years ago, a lot of people want to have brands and didn't know how to do it now you've seen 18 000 creators being like here's how you do it if you if you wanted to make that jump like you've got the tools and so now i feel like people are like okay just another one of those so i think if you do it it has to be a really interesting way what i don't think is played out around that is like alternative spaces one of the ones i saw blow up recently was a guy starting a coffee shop and then a guy doing like a burger cart um where i was like cool this is like untraditional it's not like i'm starting a clothing brand i'm starting a drink company it's like hey i'm building a brick and mortar here's how here's the economics of how it works so i do think it's like the more off the beaten path it is probably the more interesting it is and you can still succeed with it but for anyone who's like i'm gonna start my clothing brand and build it in public like truly no one cares it's like the beans guy on tiktok i love that guys you know what i'm talking about the uk guy and he's like he puts like a potato and beans he gives the first one free every day and he has like a lion that's a mile long you've never seen this guy it's all pov with like a gopro chest mount it's that's the crazy part about this we would all have seen things we would assume everyone would know that like people with this table just have no idea.

26:35Like that's how wide and vast this, this world is.

26:39Oren John:You've been able to consult for a lot of brands at like the highest level. Is there something that you find they are constantly missing the mark on when it comes to building a strong brand? Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people are just struggling with how fast content moves in this new world and like enabling those teams. And then the concept of scale, like usually what I end up having the most conversation with is like, Hey, we're all, we're putting out this content that's going okay. And now we're trying to make it better. And it's like, well, actually really your goal isn't to make it better your goal is like you actually need like all these different accounts all these different verticals all that you need to turn your operation into a media operation and then that isn't just social that ties into your performance it ties into like like a conversation i have a chart i use in decks a lot now that's uh very controversial where it's like cool it's like it's like a circle it's venn diagram not that it's a circle it's like marketing and an inside smaller circle content budget that's like how everyone thinks about it and then the real answer is like it's a circle and the circle is content and inside it is advertising of the content is like a smaller bubble.

27:32And if you change your framework to think that way, that every single thing you seed and give away is content. How you optimize your retail experience for users to be able to film it is content. Your creators, your things in all those assets. And then you then run ads on the best performing of that. That is like a better way. But that's like a paradigm shift for a new generation of marketers is like not equipped for it. There's still billions of dollars in print and shit that's out of home. for news media journalism. Broadcasts. Have you tried to read one of these websites? It's unreal. Read one of these news websites and a pop-up comes and an interstitial.

28:03And I'm like, this is the worst experience. You got to subscribe. I'm like, dude, this should have been a carousel. 100%. That's where all that goes, right? And you'll see more and more like people are getting their news from. I'm just going to scroll a carousel. The next like six to 12 months are going to be very interesting to see if they, if you know, you should do a little thing at can. You need to go up and be like, I need to talk to you all guys. Well, that's one of our, The talk we're giving at Collins, Ashwin and I are giving, or a lot about that, it's kind of like a meta talk. It's almost like, all right, here's kind of what monoculture looks like.

28:28And then here's what we think how Khan should have pivoted or should be pivoting now and how people are approaching that. You know, one of the interesting ones, speaking of Khan, is I was looking at all the events. I'm like, who's doing an interesting event? And it's like very limited. But one of the most interesting was LinkedIn, which is a rare, I'm not big after me, like LinkedIn's marketing is amazing. But their event there was... We just put out a pie today on LinkedIn. Look, ultra-valuable network, hold on, a different thing. But they have an event there where they are teaching professionals to make content.

28:55And they have a studio you can book time and they will film and record you. That is their con presence. And I was like, okay, now we're cooking. Now they're turning all those people, all these ad professionals. Well, maybe they'll make their first video with LinkedIn produced. They get that network effect of it. And they're actually like practicing what they preach. The video is in there. And I was like, it was interesting to me. I was like, LinkedIn has a winner. You know, that was cool. It's amazing what you can see in people that you can connect with on LinkedIn. It's just off a DM, off a posting content, like the guy that we just had on, he's saying there's a billion users and 1 % of them are making stuff, which is insane.

29:28Well, LinkedIn is bottom of funnel. That's what I like. A lot of creators don't realize it's like, okay, my content doesn't do huge views on LinkedIn, a couple of thousand, honestly, like on most things. But it's a, people don't feel comfortable DMing you on Instagram. All of these brand deals, stuff that I've gotten is people, they will DM you on LinkedIn. No problem. SVP of a company's CMO. They're not DMing me from their personal Instagram with their kids on it to be like, hey, let's do the other. And so I think it's just like connecting those dots. It's a smaller network of it. I think brands underestimate it too.

29:51When I was, I ran marketing at this company called Gelblaster before I started being a full-time creator. And we had a guy who worked there named Steve. He's at Pudgy Penguins now. But his whole LinkedIn was just on, I'm just going to post all the awesome content that we make as a company and all our influencers. I'm just going to post on LinkedIn because I work here. I'm stoked about it. And it was such a huge industry presence for us that this guy was just reposting our consumer content as our head of partnerships or whatever that everyone would know. B2B people like buyers at our retail, people at trade shows would know more about our content than anyone else because he's putting out this constant stream and LinkedIn is tight like that versus they're never seeing the consumer stuff.

30:25They don't follow the brand. And so I actually think it's a really underutilized channel for brand marketing as well from a person releasing the content. How long did it take you like during the time when you were head of marketing at this company to then actually leaving? Were you cranking out content while you were there on your own personal page? Like what was that like? Because I think a lot of people that might be listening to this right now are like maybe they're at a job and they're doing this stuff. They're moonlighting on the side, doing it at night, trying to create content. and they want to eventually make it full time.

30:49Like, what advice do you have for those people? So I was doing it in this position to understand it. I had gone back. The previous company I worked at before that, I was like the president of it. I was way more operational. I was dealing with distribution and trucking and retail and I wasn't in marketing as deep. And I was like, cool, now I'm back in a marketing job. And I'm like, I don't understand organic content. So I started making TikTok to like basically understand how TikTok works. And it went better than expected. But then, yeah, so then it was like, cool, I'm making TikTok, it doesn't really matter.

31:15I make one a night. Then it's like, okay, now there's some money. and like no one really noticed or cared or like was what it was but then it started to be like uh this started to be a huge bonus because like started to get pretty large and then i'd be in meetings like retail meetings and they'd be like oh these other three people are here because they like your tiktok and i'd be like oh this is now like a tool and i think people at my company saw very quickly being like oh this is a tool like put him in front of it introduce him as the influencer whatever and then it became when it was when like the real money came when it was like cool i actually make more casually off this than i do an executive position was when it became a conflict you know Because I still, I went back to work partially recently just because I need that structure.

31:49I'm like too ADD to not have a core thing that gets me up at 7 in the morning and has me doing objectives. So I kind of needed that. So I never was the goal. But then the fiscal incentives are so misaligned because you can make so much money from content versus jobs, especially as a creative that it's an interesting time to be in.

32:05Oren John:What was that first brand deal that you got? Timberland. Yeah, I have huge love for Timberland. I would love for them to ever first check$1 ,500. Wow. And I was like, Timberlake, this is sick. And out of the blue, it wasn't expected. And then from there, it was a bunch of B2B sass. But yeah, I was like, this is awesome. So you started making content just because you wanted to understand it more, not even with the mindset of, I want to become a full-time creator. Not at all. And I tried a few different things. I was making, I didn't drink at the time, so I was making non-alcoholic beverage content.

32:35I was like, cool, can I review that? I tried a few stuff. My whole thing was, I'm not going to stop until I get a video with 5 ,000 views. and I made like 50 before we got to there but then the first one that got 5 ,000 was like the next one was 10k and then we're off to the races um but I remember like I was making videos and they were kind of bad and I had uh I got some advice from it was like a girl I knew from high school who was like hey she's at the time she said you need to slow down like you need to be hotter and you need to like talk that talk and so you can actually literally watch you can go all the way back and you'll see when I like don't talk the speed I am now I've like sped back up since then but it's like me and I'm in like yeah I'm in like a tank top and I'm like talking shit about like luggage or whatever and you could like watch the transition and everyone was like immediately like gravitated to it i was like man like sometimes just taking that advice from someone like she had been on tiktok forever i was like oh yeah oh i just gotta be hot yeah it's gonna be hotter she was like a lot of people don't care about what their appearance and i was just like i wasn't lit well i wasn't whatever and she's just like i was decently cut at the time and it was just like uh not like yeah now it's like now it's all crazy now people are all like yeah everyone

33:35Oren John:like looks amazing but dude we joke around and we're just like oh so we just got to go to bali become tan and get ripped and then we're good and they're good just pop the pepies brother but is it like that what is it what it's carrying is more caring more than being like super like that's the other is because a lot of people just don't i'm like yo like if you look slobby unless that's what you're going for people don't relate to people want to relate to people they aspire to be like for the majority of it you know yeah we only look at hot people on but i do feel like generationally now everyone is like way more they understand what it takes I look back when I was in high school and shit, and it was like carbo-loading was still a thing.

34:09Bro, it's because we didn't know about social like that, that we didn't get bullied as much online. But also, we didn't know what to do. If someone had told me when I was 16, eat 200 grams of protein every day, and your whole life will be fine, and then you're concerned with nothing else, my entire life would be different. You know what I'm saying? I remember you find fitness YouTube in high school, and it was off to the races, dude. I was like, this is all I need. I just got to follow this guy. He gives out all the advice for free. But we were worried about taking creatine in high school. Dude, I was ripping it, dog.

34:34When I graduated, I saw one YouTube video. All I needed. Didn't research it at all. I started - It's bodybuilding.com for us. Yeah, bodybuilding.com. I'm like, yep, let me - that is so funny. You just opened up a crazy memory. Bodybuilding.com. I literally ordered creatine. I remember this one kid's mom I go over and I had my little backpack on to go to the gym and I just had every supplement. BCA's, creatine-ed it. Protein powder. I had it all at the stack. He didn't go over and his mom's like, what's that in your bag? Acting like it was a class one drug. She's like, is that creatine? Diego will not be will not be partaking in the creatine that you guys are having then I'm like I've watched one video I'm like you don't understand it's the most research drug you haven't done your research you haven't done your research we're gonna fix Alzheimer's here

35:12Oren John:dude I I remember talking to a guy dude named Adam he was a few years older than me and he was really good at baseball and I was like what's like the secret he goes dude I took some creatine and he goes but then I got off it and I like became slower and I was like I can't take that and so I got scared of taking creatine that's what it was that's like the level of education we had now versus these these mu maxing kids out here like just have the whole recipe you know yeah god bars higher so funny how dialed was your positioning as a creator when you first started were you just like i'm gonna go all in on branding no zero i like zero dialed i was like non-alcoholic beverages now i was like cool i'm gonna talk about consumer packaged goods no one gives a shit and then it was like cool i'm like and i started like really talking about like luxury like nice stuff like expensive stuff and then it moved a bit into marketing and then now it's like i always have like four pillars and i kind of like try to work around that but it's like ever shifting talk to us about the pillars yeah i just like to have like i plan my content like roughly like by month probably like here's what i'm trying to focus on this month and what i've noticed is i'll have like topics that resonate but they go away that's why the monthly is important so like packaging used to be a pillar used to talk about packaging a lot and it would always hit and i had a couple different approaches to it but then it just stopped being it's like not in the zeitgeist wasn't interesting like removed it as a pillar versus like right now um like travel content is like a pillar so i'm always posting travel content every week and like like a unique approach to it, like design travel.

36:28And then I have like product versus brand as like a pillar. And that's another one too, right? Like I didn't do it for like six months. It was getting me the wrong audience. But now it's like, I need the right type of funnel to like bring it back. So I kind of just have this list of topics, probably like 14, 15 things that are like, what are the four I'm really concentrated on? Like next month I'm like bringing luxury back. I haven't made luxury content for a minute. And it's gonna be like luxury month, at least in my head. I'm not gonna like say that publicly, but it's like, all right, how is that like a recurring through line through this?

36:52But I feel like that's how you keep it interesting, keep it right. is like, okay, is this working? Does it go? Is it tired? Bring it back. And I'm usually trying to be like, two things I know are winning. One thing I know is kind of on its way out. And then one thing new I'm trying.

37:03Oren John:Man, I've never heard it explained like that. I've always heard the four pillars. You want to diversify your content a little bit, but I love the not being scared to almost reposition yourself month to month. Yeah, because you have to, because you'll see it. Like if I was still making packaging content, it would be just, it'd be dead, right? And that's why the travel was so big where I was just like, cool, again, because also what's the pillar? What can other people not do? What's going to get replicated? you know there's a lot of this like and I had carousels in there for a minute I was like cool like carousels to push to my YouTube about the videos to do whatever it was great and like they still work now but then that's me in my back of my head being like this content's too normal when it comes to not a personal brand but a traditional brand how important is positioning and what tactics can brands use to dial in the positioning more yeah so I think it's basically the same thing I always look at like the goal number one goal for brands get one type of content that works and and that can be also organic or ads right like it's just like find a thing that has some level of scalability.

37:54Like that is your number before you think about anything else, like get the one thing. And then it's like, I would, it's the same approach of like, all right, how do I have these? And one of the biggest things I think brands need to think about is people consume content in different ways. Like I'm a green screen creator is how I started. Right. But not everyone, I don't consume any green screen content. I can't listen. I can't watch something for more than like nine seconds. I don't have the right disposition. So I can't even make it through my own videos or even like my friends videos. So, but that to me is I'm a huge consumer.

38:19I have a bunch of expendable income. I'm in my target demographic, but I watch 11 second videos with captions on them. Right. And I scroll a lot of carousels. Like it's a different approach to it. And so I think brands need to think about that same thing. Your target consumer consumes multiple types of different content. So I encourage them to have like a bridge of those formats. Like there's a lot of people that only consume carousels. So if you're a brand, like what I've said about carousels is less relevant for a brand. Cause I feel like that your job is to get views, approach your consumer in different ways.

38:45Like carousel should be a pillar. Same thing with like how you're looking at content that's like a vlog or a storytelling versus a person talking. And they're both valued in their own way. But it's like that combination of like ideas you're getting across and the formats you're doing it in. A brand I really like, I feel like is a good strategy for people to look at is this brand Percival, like a UK menswear brand. What I like about them is they have founder content, but he's like one of every 10 videos. And he'll do like a conversation and sit down, but it's recurring. You know him, there's this educational component, and then they'll have their more traditional lookbooks.

39:12Then they'll have kind of like their vlogs and skits, and they'll have their more standard like unboxing, showcases, whatever it is, but you get that information about the product, you get the behind the brand, it's all kind of symbiotic into this big thing. I think brands need to find their multiple styles and their pieces and be kind of testing their way through it and testing every organic piece of content as an ad. That's like, the thing I see people do the least that's probably the most valuable is like, if you're not running every single thing that's on your feed that makes any level of sense, and just putting it in your ASC campaign for meta, or like running it through Spark if it hits on TikTok, to just see if it hits your same ROAS goals as your other stuff, like, there's money waiting there to be made gosh wow it is so interesting because i think even when i talk like my core business is going to brands helping them with their social and either we make it or we just consult them with it and it's mind-boggling at how they're just holding on to these dollars from other ways that they've traditionally marketed and i'm like no no i'm telling you guys like this is what they're doing and they're a lot of the feedback that i get from them which is crazy and you just said it is they're putting paid behind shit that they don't know works so they're just like they're just like oh yeah we ran five paid ads i go did you post them first no why and also did you run what you already posted that you already have good metrics on and just and just test and it's like mind-boggling and i only discovered that i was using um it's funny i had i had a sponsorship deal with this company called particle it's like a research software for for branding and i was looking at i'm going through and i'm looking at you can look at any brand sales and this is when i was launching some of my like my little like little brand i have where i sell like clothes and stuff like related to my content and i was looking at represent and cole bucks and than most of these other brands.

40:43I liked Cole Buxton because it represents a big dog. You can't learn anything from that. But Cole Buxton's kind of in that middle position. And I was looking at it, I'm like, oh, they're running every single, I'm in their ads manager, I'm in the other, they're running every single organic post as an ad. And I was like, I hadn't even thought of it like that. We'd run occasional, we'd put some in there in Gelboss, we'd be like, okay, let's run some of our best. But now, I put every single post I put on there, just put it at ASC. It's going to either spend or not. And you're going to see Roast or not, it's gonna take like a couple hundred bucks to figure anything out and you get so many winners and the outsized winners on social is the stuff you get 4.2 6.5 row ass on at least for a few weeks and like that's it's just such a massive hack and you can watch is why some of these clothing brands have crushed it dude so do you find do you find that with these brands you start working with when they get these like a bigger winner like a 4x or a 6x it only lasts for a certain it doesn't nothing's no creative skills forever it's a creative volume game like right now i view this even small like uh like even for like even for my valuables brand like i run a lot of this is creative i'll have a grip his creative for a few weeks and but if you were putting in hella creative or variations maybe it's better but like everything is a volume game for everyone i work with right now uh the core brand i've worked with for a long time in clothing it's a women's wear brand we run the same playbook all the time but it's a shitload of creative it's like every time we release a collection it's a uh lifestyle carousel for the collection it's a white background carousel for the collection it's a reel that shows fit on different body types we run and then it's like a lookbook basically it's four pieces for every item in the collection and but it gives us just a ton of content to test i noticed that minted does this really well where like they're coming out with something like let's say they're coming out with the collection it's like little teaser the tag little teaser the fabric show it on a body cool video drop and it's like it's a it's a playbook that a lot of these brands are following and it's working and if you run that same playbook it works on organic and all those are also ad assets all of a sudden you just like save money on your creative budget and then also you're getting that validation you already know and also makes your social be more popping, right?

42:30It's kind of a win-win across the board. And like TikTok's an even better version of this because you can track the revenue better

42:35Oren John:with the TikTok shop. You've also talked about how important like BTS content is. I remember I watched a video of you talking about like the photo shoot playbook for fashion brands. Can you talk about how to execute BTS content or basically how to execute maybe a photo shoot where you're like a fashion brand is dropping a new collection. What is all the types of content that they should be getting like on top of just the yeah just the visual well i think the bts one's interesting where most people fail at bts is you'll go into this thing oh we shot bts this shoot it's like okay great we have you know two hours or 300 gigs of bts yeah but there's no plan so the number one thing is just the plan and so usually it's like everything is references now right everything's briefs and so you go into that shoot it's like okay what's the bts plan we're not just shooting bts someone's responsible it's like julie is shooting the bts and here's the four reference videos we have.

43:26One of the BTSs is just like a sizzle reel. And to get that hot, we need to be able to do these two techniques or transitions. And so her job is to capture stuff for that. The other thing is a before the shot, after the shot. Well, the more compelling the before is, if we can make it funny or an interesting angle, the better it is. So it's like your BTS needs a shot list, basically, at least for the hooks or the key parts, as much as the rest of your stuff does. But you've identified that. I'm doing this type of BTS or that. And so all the people that really do this, all the creative strategists are like, they have their bookmarks folder or their an ocean doc or their foreplay board or whatever it is with each of these categories like this is the bts reference this is my launch this is my teaser and you just go through and you just pull those for that shoot but i think the biggest bts thing is to plan it or you end up with that drive and someone's going to figure it out and no one has a plan and like that's the cursed state to be in yeah because literally you finish the shoot and you just have all this stuff like all this bts that's why it never comes out everyone's like well we have bts we still use them like yeah because there was no plan and the plan is either like the best ones are before the shot after the shot so if you can be like hey there you have show some crazy thing and make people wait and then you show them the result.

44:19Like that's a, that's a surefire format that works. And then some kind of sizzle reel where you get to tease it is like another one. Uh, and then I like, I've been doing this with my events where you do like a carousel and, uh, there's a brand called Sonny's Face was the first one I saw do this, a Philippines, like cosmetic brand, but they'd be like the location, the models, the talent, the product. And they like have a slide for each of them. I was like, oh, it's a fun format to do BTS. And so I've been doing that for events now. Brilliant. It's also interesting too, because I remember back in the day, especially when we get hired to just go like cover an event it would be a recap video and it's such a waste of money to just do a recap video nowadays it's like dude we should be doing iphone we should be posting live during the event we should be doing a photo carousel going live during the event we should be teasing if there's an important speaker there and brands just are not doing that go back to the brand world it's like okay is there a makeup artist there do they have social media do you want to shoot them doing the look for that and give them a piece that then goes on their social that they were on your shoot i'm like you can be when you really begin to plan out it's like you gets so sick yeah god and you just have so many more pieces and the money goes so much further makes so much more sense for them yeah well i looked at what's the ones like wimbledon posted a thousand times during that one wimbledon like we've all seen that it's just like and you okay when you look at how do they really do it a thousand times it's like yeah they had high level art directed photography of everything happening they had the actual event coverage they had behind the scenes they had here's the drink recipe here's whatever you can really go down into it if you have a media team that's savvy enough it's all just creating the shot list bro i remember during during a lakers game right we would post i remember one of the games that we had we were it was like one of the craziest games we posted 56 or 57 times in an evening and every single thing was humming and it's like you have photo the design team's in the back they're cranking shit out photos sending shit to design to add into their little carousels they're doing a carousel at halftime we're doing a video every damn minute i'm sending a video from the court you have another guy who's up in the rafter sending a video from the court you have a social manager who's gathering shit on the phone and then you have a qb who's asking for stuff so it's like bro we are having all these different mouths are being fed and she's like i want this for facebook or i want this for twitter i want this for instagram that's a great tiktok or it's like lebron just went and signed this little girl's shoe that's a tiktok and it's like dude when you think about you have a team of five six seven people that are all dialed that are all on the same page of like we're feeding this beast today it's an unbelievable thing when you see it feels good when you're doing it i think what's funny is teams will have oh we have five or seven people on the ground but they're like holding a light doing they're not they don't operate like that's the difference if you can get those operators or coach your team to be operators at that level the amount of content and stuff that you can get is amazing and to your point if some of it starts hitting the rest of it starts hitting yes and so like don't be afraid to post that 50 times we're actually talking about this uh ashwin and i next week for calm where i was like cool like do i try like maybe i try to post like 30 times next week and like what does that look like and would that work and kind of debating the merits of it or not or when do you evaluate it but i think that's like you should for creators i think we're gonna attempt it i feel like you you guys would kill especially because it is such a culturally relevant moment to be there and to see whatever is happening and you're halfway around the world most people can't can't even buy that flight and it's just prep and so like we have like we got videographers with us there's editors editing support there's overnight editing support there's design support so now it's just like okay what concepts do you have like everything comes back to it's so funny like i have a i like relentlessly bookmark catalog like i'm i have everything tagged i have like this massive notion database this is a notion that you're working do you love notion ah notion is great i it's it's it's like there's you can whatever platform you pick is probably fine.

47:34I love Notion for the way I think. I don't think like everybody else. The biggest thing about Notion is that you can embed the TikToks and Instagrams and stuff. It's such a big difference. I don't have to click. It's like, cool. I use toggles all the time. It's like toggle. I have these things embedded. And so it's not like I have a list in a spreadsheet. I got to go click and be like, what was that reference about again? It's like, no, here's the visual. I watch it in app or in doc. Oh, you can just watch it right there. And so that was, to me, it's like, nothing else matters. You can use any database platform is whatever but the fact i can just watch it all in the toggle is like is game changing and but then it's just now it's just creating these lists it's being like all right like i have my uh i always look at launches like tease of launch unveil of launch launch after education so i have like these four big docs for that but it's like cool i need to go pull 15 things through that what applies to the content like how do i have so when you're somewhere i'm at this event okay what is the idea that we can run with because that's the hardest part is you're in this thing like what is the content idea how do you drill down to it how dude who can hold my hand with notion i want to be a notion guy we both want to be notion guys yeah it's youtube yeah yeah big youtube university guy but also on that i like it's at least for me it's like very intuitive he's gonna be like it's stupid proof brother yeah it is dumb ass proof dog well now with ai too it's like make me a table that does you know and it it has an ai thing just type into chat brother just say teach

48:46Oren John:me how to notion god i want to be a notion guy okay you brought up represent and you said that's not a good example because they're a big dog and you can't really learn stuff from them yeah i think Everyone always wants to be asked, oh, I'm going to be like Bottega. I'm going to be like Represent. Like Represent is a cultural force with like a decade behind them. If you want to go craft your strategy after them, like good luck. Like that's the eye. Like you need to learn from people that are rising right now. And you look at like Represent has every tool, right? Like amazing team, great design, great product, their own products, their own stores, founder and founder brother.

49:16They're both founders, right? Who like both have their own social media. Everyone looks good, dialed in team. You can't operate like that to start, right? If you are in a mid-tier, if you're like, hey, our brand is doing 10, 12 million a year, that's a great person to aspire to be like, how do we get to 100, right? So I'm always like, you need to look at whoever is kind of rising one step, two steps above you to model after that. Because things change too quick. By the time you got to be able to follow that playbook at all, everything would be different. I guess unless you have a fucking unlimited budget to start.

49:44Unless you have unlimited pockets. That unlimited budget wouldn't even make a difference, right? Because they all have their social media followings that are all built. You can't just contrive that tomorrow, even with a budget. Like you all have like, they have found those things that work for them in terms of like pricing and the way they do the vaults and the releases. And like, they're so, it's like, oh, if we had a little budget, it would be ALD tomorrow. Like, well, do you have the cultural resonance with like investment bankers that they do? You know? Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about community for one, a creator and two, a brand?

50:11I want to start with a creator because I think it's a thing that everyone's throwing around.

50:15Oren John:You got to build community. You got to do this. You got to do that. Right. Just having a broadcast channel isn't building community. And I think I saw a video, I'm pretty sure that you put out a bit ago, just talking about community building. How can a creator go about doing this authentically in something that's like actually a real community, not some bullshit. That's just like, yeah, we have this channel we posted sporadically. Like, you know, I'm just curious of what you've noticed. And so I think you can use those things correctly. And I'll call out, um, so my friend Jordan Rogers, he's a, like a sports marketing creator.

50:43Yes. He's ex Nike, right? Ex Nike. And he, I felt like used his broadcast channel and his stories really well for his niche to build community around. Because he basically uses his broadcast channel as here's all the news you need to know in sports marketing. And then asking for their takes. And then really kind of making videos based on takes people have. Like, hey, chat, do we like this Adidas campaign? Here's my thought. He'll get a bunch of replies. People are actually like, oh, I don't like this. I do like this. And then you'll see like a video will come out the next day that might reference something in the chat.

51:06So you feel like there's an involvement level. And even like stories being conversational. But I do feel like really the community is bringing value to people that goes beyond when they just take your content. It's like, hey, are they are you like a part of their lives in some other way and then i feel like connecting to the in real life experiences is the biggest one so i've been like really focused on events and meetups and stuff like that and like don't charge for them don't any other like it's just like having those because like as soon as you have an in real life thing with somebody like then i feel like it's moved into community but building it purely online is i feel like it's having a conversational space where people feel like their input and back and forth is valuable you can totally have a community in your youtube comments like 100 percent um but then the next step will be like bringing that to real life but it is not an easy undertaking and it revolves you having more than like more than a one-way conversation i think is like the the minimum

51:51Oren John:threshold yeah what are brands messing up when they do their pop-ups um i mean a lot of brands are doing good pop-ups now but hey having to be social media friendly enough is like the biggest one like is it something you want to put in your agenda because you have to get this photo or this thing or that thing um it's like a it's like a big part of it like i see lots of really good pop-ups and brand events and activations now i feel like brands are starting to nail it but it's like what are your consumers creating content from when they do it and what are they excited enough to do? And are you thinking about their experience?

52:17One of the ones that, like when Rode had like these long lines that pop up in New York, it's like they had like waters and gift baskets and like little shit for all the people that were waiting all day. And it's like, it's a little shit like that. It's like, what is going to make my consumer potentially be upset? How do I preemptively solve that problem? Miss Biebs, dude, she is on it, man. That brand's amazing. A hundred percent. My girlfriend fucking loves it. She buys everything that she puts out. And it's like, it's incredible stuff. Everything is very dialed from a product standpoint. I don't I wouldn't know but I've heard yeah I mean look at like the cultural significance of the iPhone case and shit like that yeah it's like I think so many guys have that experience where like their girls saw for the first time and like audibly gasped and you're like that's like impact

52:55Oren John:you know yeah god it's so interesting speaking about spaces or staying on spaces you also talk about how important the space in which you live in is important for your creativity can you go into that yeah I just feel like every your entire life now that you're fighting your phone and everything around you for attention is like everything is designed to distract you from like getting to your end goal and i feel like then in your own space how optimized that is is like a huge difference like i look at this i have uh i have like my desk with my ring light and my tripod and my mic and stuff right there if i had to set that up every time i'd make a third of the content right and so and it's the same thing with your prioritization like um i was talking about this with a friend of mine where he was complaining about something i was like but you walk in your house you have a fucking massive like 80 inch television like rest of most prominent thing in your home so like what are you going to spend your time doing it's going to be around that now like if the mood boards for your brand were covering the television and that was the center of the room what do you think the prioritization of attention is so i think it's like it's almost like dumb genius stuff where you're just like hey the biggest or most easiest things to spend your time on is what you're going to spend your time on and so i think it's like optimizing for that is uh Is like super important.

54:04God we're about to be home office guys. We cannot wait, dude.

54:07Oren John:Yeah, that's definitely a big thing that I found living here is It's been great for the podcast and we have so much camera stuff, but it wasn't designed for us to be creative Yeah And also like I would work out of my room having like my desk in there and i'm so excited to have a clean space Living with the girls nice because she brings like she makes it all aesthetic but having the home office to separate work and home and then also having my own space to be like when i go in there i know i'm going to be working and my tripod's going to be set up the light's going to be set up it's going to be way easier to make content see this this place is optimized for a podcast totally it was not optimized to to create content for ourselves personally and it's like it's been super difficult but i feel like we've made it work to the best of our ability but like it's so much easier to make a pod like people just walk in yeah we just turn the table five minutes we're ready to rock and roll were you the one who talked about inspo maxing yeah yeah i love that well i'd say it's just everything in your life it's like what do you spend your like i use the brick thing to shut my social media off on my phone the little 15 dollar thing but then the only ones that aren't shut off is like cosmos and pinterest so it's like cool if i need to scroll i'm scrolling mood board accounts and even in the house like my house is like full of the boards and whatnot i got whiteboards everywhere and she's like once you kind of embrace it like it's gonna be a little crazy or if other people are gonna be like that's a little off but like then everything is just better.

55:23Because even like I order all this physical stuff, all these print magazines, I'm constantly like buying. It's just like anything that sparks any idea is worth so much. Because like all of this is workflow. Like anyone can make good content now. Anyone can make a good podcast, can have a conversation, can do what any of us do. And so it's a volume game. And a volume game means workflow. It's like, how do you produce good stuff at scale? And so then it's like inspiration is issue one. Like how do I get ideas? And so I feel like anything that is going to, if I can spend any amount of money that will get me a good idea, it's probably fucking worth it.

55:51Like, and, and so like I am constantly spending money to generate those ideas. And then it's like, is there any trick or thing that can make a video pop off? Like, right. If I wear, am I going to get 10 extra comments because of this hoodie? Or if I buy this photo copier, is that going to mean I can get seven videos out of using that? And that's okay. Amortize that is worth a thousand dollars for me to have a fucking banger video. And so cool. That was now an infinite budget for me to get more banger videos. You have that cost and you have your time. It was like, all right, what am I spending time on?

56:15That's not like helping pursue those goals. What are that can get removed or not? Or do I want to remove or not to like have your life balance? But when you break things down like that, you can really start to be like, oh, here's where I'm messing up. You are so right. And I was literally thinking about this last night with our New York trip. I was like, I have 12 videos from New York that we just went to. We went for like four days. I'm like, there's at least 12 pieces of content in here. So worth it. And then for the obviously the impact of these interviews, just having that content to be able to produce.

56:41We're going to have 100 pieces from four days, which is kind of crazy to think about. And it's because we want to break down like cost of content is like a thing. I think every brand and creator needs to really understand like cost per asset of everything. And also for two ways. One, maybe you're overspending or other, maybe you're underspending. Like, I don't know, I'll spend between editors and management and travel and whatnot. I'll probably spend 300 plus K this year on content supporting stuff. Wow. But I would never be able to have, you're never going to make seven figures as a creator if you're not investing at least to that level.

57:12And so, and I, was I doing that two years ago? Like, no, but then you start to realize like, oh, like I was the same thing. I went to, I did a China trip. Cool. Some of it brands help with. something I'm coming out of pocket for or I'm bringing videographers even like cons like cool some stuff is covered some is not I'm just doing that math I'd be like what is a banger video worth to me how many videos am I going to get what's my percentage of bangers to like normal videos and it's just like but that like that's the math and then but you that math scales yeah 100 % what have you what was the first hire that you brought on and now what does the team look like YouTube editor part of the most important management was huge so like I have managed by this company called DMG that was super useful because I just wasn't I would never have charged like what I charge now without having management who like knew what they're doing.

57:51And then they also, they do all the negotiation. They do all the invoice. I'm just like, oh, the brief is here. Like amazing. This is mine. I got two slots a week and we kind of fill them up. So that was a huge help. Everyone thinks like, oh, I'll negotiate my own thing or any extra why. It's like, man, just never think about that ever again. That's a great way to look at it.

58:04Oren John:So yeah. I just signed a management. So I'm really excited to see how that goes. Yeah, if you have a lot of inbound, then it's like very, very helpful for that. So yeah, so there's management, YouTube editing was big. Like design support is big. YouTube, I feel like I have a higher strategy. It's my first one on YouTube. I did a bunch of like different like stuff in and out. But I think most of the expenses comes down to like, what am I making? I don't feel bad about buying anything to like make content about or like do anything. I know a lot of the creators will buy a Bottega bag. They know they'll make the money back, you know, like because they'll have X and Y videos about it.

58:35I look at travel exceedingly like that. Like travel is like top of funnel content for me. So I have no problem spending 10, 15 grand going somewhere if I'm gonna get eight, 10 videos out of it. fuck yes awesome dude i love it so right now with the youtube editor like what does youtube look like for you because i know it's super important i know that you know those views that you are getting those buyers have intent like those people are your content specifically is very helpful for a brand like if i'm watching that i'm like oh i probably do need this guy's and i don't sell hard on there no yeah uh so he's like instagram is super monetized your brand deals So I do two brand deals a week and it's like a relentless flow of like good money, but it's capped.

59:14If I have 450K or something like that on there, if I had a million, I don't think I'd make much more, if any. It's like I'm at like the highest. I think once you're over like 300K in that like B2B space, as long as you're getting the views, you're like, hey, most of these videos are going to be 50 to 200 ,000 views. You're kind of capped in that like, it's like there's not a bigger budget. And so I'm like, cool, there's not additional funds there. YouTube, I'm not like selling hard on there. The main thing is I saw my audience is like 21 to 27. So they were younger. My Instagram, I'm a 28 to 35 Instagram and TikTok.

59:43I'm getting like professionals. These are like aspiring professionals. And so I'm like, cool. I don't necessarily want to sell that super hard. I'm way more interested in like, how do I, I feel like YouTube is way better, at least for me, for like real cultural relevance. When I look at like what, like the previous generation of people like Seth Godin or Gary Vee or whatever they do, like a lot of it's like educational stuff and a lot of it's on YouTube. And I'm like, how do I get, how do I become, how I teach as many people marketing and content and strategy in this next generation as humanly possible.

1:00:08Like that's goal one. Sponsors contribute to that It's still like Less than Instagram As a sponsor every week But like that's more Of the workflow Is like how do I cover Every corner My first six months Of real YouTube Like once I had it Kind of figured out Was all SEO It's like You go mood board You go luxury brand You go like I'm creative director Art director I like I'm it I'm top one or two If not multiple slots On all of those So I was really trying To get SEO across the niche Because I saw it was wide open All the niche terms Everyone's still fighting Over like marketing plan And shit like that I'm like nah And then it's like Okay now you get four masks It's the same thing I'm like I kind of have four.

1:00:40I've been like, I'm in an experimental mode the last month and this next month where I'm doing like eight or 10 videos where we're trying stuff. And then we're going to pare it down to basically like, here's this four same ideas we're repeating. And so what does the workflow look like? Does it, you think of, you think of a great title, you think of a great thumbnail first, like how does that? Title and thumbnail first. Okay. So I'm doing that. So first for Khan, I'm doing the art of advertising. Okay. It's being based on the fact I have an art of marketing video that did really well. And these like longer masterclass videos are doing really well.

1:01:02So I was like, cool, I'm going to do that. I think it's going to work. I have the thumbnail idea. I have the concept and I'm basically writing a video underneath that where I'm outlining it all. I'm also filming a bit on the fly as you go. And then that goes to editing. But yeah, everything's title and thumbnail first. I have a running list of extensive. I use one of 10. So I'm searching that all the time for marketing, branding, outliers, anything related to any term outliers. That's a pretty useful software.

1:01:24Oren John:And then the goal for getting attention on YouTube is to drive what? Like for consulting? No, yeah. I don't even really consult anymore. So I get the brand money off that. Like it's a five figure a month kind of thing, like nothing huge. So like there's money off that, but it's really building the audience for like, I'm unsure what I want to do there. You know, I have like, I have, there's info products and stuff too, that like are tangentially sold a bit through there. But really I'm just like looking at that audience. And building brand. Building brand. And it pays for itself. You know, like the brand deals and everything make, pay for it and make money.

1:01:52But I'm way more interested in like, how do I become the biggest marketing creator? Therefore it enables me to do all this content is really about enablement. It's like, cool. I like I didn't want to start some major fashion brand by the idea that I can go put out I put out like car accessories and this and that is like awesome that's a fun thing I want to be able to do I can go to like I was at Apple going to con like it's enabling to be able to do all this stuff and so I really look at the platform as enabling and then money's on top of it and if I ever did want to say I want to fucking cash max then it would just be info products like straight up all

1:02:18Oren John:I love the maxing we're just yeah yeah maxing we're looks maxing inspo maxing cash max cash maxing Max out. But all this is like YouTube for InfoFunnels is like the best. I just haven't like, you look at like marketing gurus where they really like Seth Godin made his money on Alt-MBA, right? It's like, it's an info product. Like the info product is like usually the end result of like all this. I'm just not sure if like, like when the right time or if the right time or what that looks like. Do you feel that people often underestimate how much. Creators can make. Oh, yeah. People are like, people have no idea.

1:02:48People are like shocked if they ever do find out. And people are like, they don't believe it. Yeah. The only people who know are people who pay influencers. We're like, what the fuck?

1:02:54Oren John:Dude, my favorite type, or one of my favorite type of content is like people that work at agencies and they're like, budgets that we paid out to influencers this week. And people are like, are you going to be fucking kidding me? It's insane. And it's only going to get bigger. Yeah. It's like so early on the wave. And you see the ROI. It's like, you see them come back. You see the other. it's almost undervalued. Like as someone like on the older end of like the influencer schedule, I'm always like, man, am I like, what does this look like in 10 years? Like it'll be like sports level contracts, you know?

1:03:23And so it's a different world. But yeah, people underestimate that. And there's so many ways to make money. A lot of creators who get stuck are doing one thing. Like if you only do brand deals, or you only do info, or you only do one or two, or if you get like, because there's ceilings to like all that based on your audience.

1:03:36Oren John:A sports contract is an interesting way of looking at it. So you think that brands will come to influencers and be like, I want to sign you to a three-year couple million dollars. I told you I was going to be in the league. It was just a different kind of way, dog. It was just a different way. You're on the Instagram. Come on, brother. So it's already happening lightly. You'll see a lot of people. I work with a cosmetics brand who has an influencer, like a makeup artist who is signed to them basically for a year. And you'll see, even you'll have exclusivity or whatever. I really think it's going to be like, it's a higher contributing than just making the content.

1:04:09but like you are in the game for like you know say i was uh i work a lot with omnisend like for email sales okay i'm never gonna use another email platform the next two years i'm gonna do x assets x whatever i show up your speaking gigs i'm on your website like that's the level like that stuff's already happening i just think it's gonna be really mass scale and it's gonna be like on products and stuff we know every day where it's like hey it's not just you know michael jordan on wheaties it's also you know like demi bagby or like whoever like that that level is gonna happen because that's what sells it's like huberman with ag1 bro yeah exactly like that's a multi-million dollar contract.

1:04:39When they know the dollars are there for both. 100%. As soon as the economics work both ways. And I think what really opened people's minds to the money creators can make is the TikTok shop shit. Yeah. Where so many people are making 10K, 20K, or at least 5K, like monthly. And then people are making like 100 and you're like, oh, it's quantifiable. But why are they making all that money? Oh, because it's actually directly attributable. Because they're literally being like, this is how much you sold, this is how much you make. And so then people start to put real value on posts and then brands start to be like, shit, okay.

1:05:03Like this is actually, this is the value we need to be spending. So the brands now that are dominating on TikTok Shop, there's still a lot of room for them to win there. Well, I think because TikTok is so aggressively trying to build that market. Like TikTok Shop's goals for TikTok Shop are like doubling year over year. So say they achieve half of that, you know, like how much that TAM is growing for the brands that are selling on there. And like we're still not, we're still like a fraction of what China looks like. And so there's no other growing platforms like in that same, at the same velocity, right?

1:05:31Like shop Instagram is cutting shopping, meta shopping from there. It's just going right to Shopify, like chat GPT and shopping within there is the other like growth category. But like Amazon, you can't just blow up out of left field on there, like on a big white space. It's also growing at the same time. You're taking that market share from some other product. What are your thoughts on these AI videos that I've seen flooding my feed over the last few days? Because we I think so, too. I think they're really funny. I'm curious, though, with like the output and the mass of what we're going to see, like Is it going to be way harder for a creator to cut through this noise?

1:06:01Or do you feel like people are going to really crave human connection? I'm just curious on your take on that. I think it's just another kind of tool or usage. I think we're going to see creators using them in the same way. It's like if I want to have another account that was like faceless or anonymous, like would I rather be a fucking panda or I rather have like some, it's just making it more entertaining. It just raises the bar of, for me, I feel like that content raises the bar for slop. There was already so many carousel accounts, faceless accounts, like generative, footage stealing, clipping, whatever.

1:06:26It's going in that slop layer, right? That's going to be more and more, the quality level of the slop layer will increase. And then there's this layer above it, which also forces the quality of everyone to increase, which is another tool in the toolkit. Just the way you're going to be like, hey, I can make, you know, I'm making these type, I make UGC ads. Okay, now it's UGC ads and there's AI ads. Just another thing.

1:06:43Oren John:Dude, the Sasquatch vlogging. Dude. So good. Or I saw one, it was Jesus and he was in the middle of like the split. So he's like, I told y 'all. So they have the guys in the Trojan horse being like, they go, no, no, no, no. doesn't even know. The idiots have no idea. But that's like also the education. Like I've got an eight-year-old kid. Would he rather like, okay, you're going to read about the Spartans in there? Or we'd rather have like the Spartan guy saying like bro doesn't even know is like so relatable to my like YouTube driven child that like it's unbelievable. That's so funny. No, dude, I think I'm going to experiment with Veo today.

1:07:14I'm going to make a little rock, a little rock guy and I'm going to have him be like kind of a little character and he's going to be talking about these new episodes and I think it's going to hit. I think it's going to be hilarious. It's just a tool. Again, it's a promo tool. It's another fun tool. But it's good. And I think it just shows you what, I think it's, everything's, everyone's always been like, oh, my content stopped working or the algorithm changed. No, that standards are constantly rising, constantly. And so if you were like, oh, but I was doing the same thing a year ago and Instagram doesn't give me any views.

1:07:38Yeah, guess what? Every piece of Instagram content is fucking better. And so this is just another one of those where like, cool, now I'm not just competing with the next creator in my niche and competing with the talking panda or whatever it is. You're like, cool. What do you have to do to be better than that? you know god it is gonna be so interesting the next like six to 12 months it's gonna get crazy

1:07:54Oren John:there's obviously content that generates a lot of views but then there's also content that really cultivates an audience and allows people to like want to buy and build trust so what's what do you feel like is the difference between that kind of content where a brand might get a lot of views or a person might get a lot of views but you're not really building trust in a way to have people want to like buy or buy into you yeah i think it really comes down to like what is the intention of the content. It's like people can tell when the attention of the content is to sell them. And I'm not saying that it might not work, but they can also tell if someone's like really genuinely trying to like improve value, like improve their lives, give them value that helps create something that they aspire to be like.

1:08:29And so I think it's just like going into each one of those being like, what is my consumer going to take away? Or did they feel rewarded by this versus going in there being like, how do I explain them this thing?

1:08:38Oren John:Yeah. I feel like you can really tell when you're being sold to. Maybe it was a little bit easier to kind of hide that earlier on. But now I think it's like, there's just so much content out there and we're constantly being sold to. It's really refreshing when you're hit with really authentic content. And that's why like solving user need is always going to be better when you're like, Hey, I actually solved this problem for you. And so I can lead all my content with an issue that you have. And here's how we're going to, it's always just going to go better than like, Oh, I need to, here's a lifestyle reason to buy this or buy it.

1:09:03Cause it's cool or X or Y. Like it's just a, you can still, again, it all still works, but there's just a way easier, more natural play to things that have real reason to exist all the stuff i bought too it's because either for the person or for the brand like i've gotten some sort of value from it and then i transact like for myself personally which is interesting that's why i think the represent thing is really interesting where i think they've uh even like free fitness app they've like they're inspiring to this generation of guys and then they help them dress better and they've given them like i feel like they give them like relatively free value and like to a certain certain degree and like make them feel like by being a part of the brand they're like leading fit better lives

1:09:39Oren John:and like that's a powerful thing i mean i feel like george heaton's really leading the the revolution of just being hot and fit and tan dude he's fucking looks maxing dude you always i want to buy a hoodie it's funny what was it uh uh i was with i was with like another creator that is like we're talking we all like make youtube videos and someone's like that guy it's like making vlog videos and it's like hey well like i don't actually run like 12 hours a day or like or go to the gym like because you see all the creators like yeah marcus and george and all that it's like all the vlogs i'm like god you guys really work out these guys are these guys are running brother yeah i was just like you want to see me make a rocket with my son i mean my son are gonna watch this panda yeah i'm gonna talk to him about why he shouldn't watch this youtube channel uh but yeah we're gonna do it we're gonna talk about italian brain rot um but it's just funny because like yeah if you are in that phase and like you do have the time to be able to work out do that leverage that while you can because it doesn't last forever i can't make that vlog dude i'm turning 30 and i'm like it's all downhill um i i would love to kind of get into a little bit of like you breaking our brand down because i don't feel like we are doing a great job like we're consistent with the pod but i would love to get your your um your perspective on like what could we be doing from a brand perspective i feel like we're really great at providing a lot of value in an entertaining way for a lot of creators.

1:11:04Oren John:But I think the way that we can present, you know, from maybe a visual perspective could be a little bit better. I also think that there was the golden age on TikTok. We were first, like we were first on this golden era of views on TikTok. I remember literally there was a period of time, it's not like this anymore, where everything we touched on TikTok, 10k plus, we're getting a hundred thousand a million like 650k and i think that the like i said we've relied too hard on what was working for a period of time so and now i think it's so much more like we're putting so much effort into the actual youtube show like making this thing great and growing the youtube that instagram has sort of taken and tiktok i feel like a backseat where like it was what was working in the past like these clips were working and now i feel like you know what i mean that's kind of where i see it from person that's in it and then i guess the last thing i'll say from from s from an aesthetic perspective that doesn't come naturally for me and brayden and so i think when we were first starting the show we were just like what color and what font should we use but there's so much more that goes into branding than just font and color um and so i think we've just kind of been winging it this whole time i mean i think uh you guys have a lot there's a lot of potential on there because you guys have really strong personalities especially when you get in here and like engaging personalities, but that doesn't come through.

1:12:23A lot of podcasts make it more about the guests. It seems like that's what's on there too. Like your personality should be like a huge part of that. But A, I think like skits, you got to get skits in there. You guys are fun and you've made skits before. Every guest that should be like, hey, it could be a dumb idea, but like we're going to try a collab skit. Cause like that's, then you get this extra piece of content out of it that doesn't always have to be serious. And since you guys are like lightly, you're very serious on the pod, but like lightly unserious around it. I think that's like a good thing to add in.

1:12:47But even little stuff like you're doing this, but like there isn't like the timer compilation reel. It's like having a couple of those vehicles people are looking for, especially anything time related. Like I love, have you guys seen the Bape content they do now at the Bape store? No. So the Bape store will bring in influencers and celebrities and be like, you have 90 seconds to build a fit with this color. And they pick a color out and they run around the store and people wait because there's a timer counting down. And then they watch them grab the clothes and they wait to see what the fit looks like, like at the end.

1:13:11And if they got it or not, it's like rated. Brilliant. But I feel like time is a huge component for this where it's like, cool if you did have something where it's like, you guys have one. up the ante on having something like that and actually posting them when they're funny. Like that, the skits end. And yeah, the branding, I feel like, has to evolve to something where it's extremely obvious as soon as someone sees it on screen that it's yours without being too off for the feed. And that's really achievable. It's really its font, its color. And I would just take the 505 and make it something very sick or make it ever-shifting, even if you had 100 505 logos.

1:13:44And it's always changing. Or like, well, what is that? Making that extremely prominent and whatever. but like it's like taking this to the next level it's like if that was everyone's doing all this crazy fabrication now it's like you have that but it's made out of stone or it's made out of whatever run through ai enough times and floating in the background or cgi behind you that's easy enough in cap cut i would just be like really like making that 505 prominent with a bunch of like different visual looks that was a lot of ideas i love that no i'm seriously i'm super down for that but then you're like carrying around the street like you guys are if you guys are going through all those vlogs you have you're carrying like a stone 505 thing like then all of a sudden it's like visually exciting dude we should always travel with a 505 rock we have someone said do you see up there on the tip top shelf next to that we gotta show that thing the world yeah so what someone sent us that they like wrote 505 and shipped it to us it was lucas osborne lucas said it to us but it's funny if you guys always have it or it's like a new one like they don't even mention it but like someone's like always carrying like a astro turf 505 whatever there's like stuff like that but like again you see that those visual vehicles and i would just super lean into humor because people are either following podcasts because they're like cult lies like that or because they like like the guy's personality and yours is going to be driven by be like oh these guys feels like my friends i think

1:14:44Oren John:you're right i think yeah we have really we've done an okay job of like bringing ourselves into the content but yeah the 505 page specifically unless we're like collabing on a post is mainly about the guests because the value is there so now you need the fun and the spectacle but that's like the fun part especially for it seems like for y 'all personalities be like cool let's lean into that i think maybe the reason why we kind of shied away from that we were doing that but then we realized that like all the clips that were doing the best were all value based we were like okay we only have to do value based content on short form but i think now it's different now it's like multiple because all the value clips are out there and if you do the value clips like the edit game has to be harder because you're seeing now like with clipping it's like there's anyone can go through a pod and rip a bunch of versions of it and like and put some hope core music or whatever and like likely go up a notch um but i also think too the aesthetic of like you guys follow rob rob the bank yeah yeah so like what he's doing now he has like the hope core edit with like the black outline and like the visuals that come up and it's like finding your own kind of trademark he grabbed the style that was already kind of popular sort of made it his in a really good way but i think too if you uh like doing something like that where it's just like because anyone can if anyone can clip your podcast clip the same way then you're kind of like you're a production step behind for in terms of short form success so it's like how do you have that kind of unique method again what i like about his it's like related to something that people already see so it feels like you know it and it's just like finding that little angle i think it It also goes back though to the world building.

1:16:05Oren John:I think we just got to bring people more into the world of 505 and think about what that looks like. Because even the in real life stuff, like we want to start doing events and even just starting with a coffee meetup, which we've been saying that we want to do forever. We just haven't prioritized it. But I think starting there and I think you're right. I think just like having more of a plan of like, how can we maximize having a certain guest on the show and what kind of content can we make around that? plus how can we bring ourselves more into 505? Even like a little thing, like doing this at the beginning is awesome.

1:16:37And it's like, cool. Like if that was like, all right, you're doing flip cup with every guest or whatever. It's like, it's funny enough where you're like, especially if it's against each other, there's some level of drama. I just feel like there's this natural playfulness that like versus a lot of the podcasts I've been on are so serious all the time. It's like just lean into that shit. Because it's so social optimized. Because see what we do now, like the one-handed crack used to be in the show, but it takes up too much time for someone who doesn't know us. Like in the very beginning, right? it's like that's valuable real estate they have no idea who we are they click on said title they're expecting this thing and then you have three of us talking about this can for a sec so now we pivoted it to be like this is a social piece it'll go up the day before every single episode now it'll go up and hopefully one day you know even it's like a leaderboard and it's like oh he took down cane yeah it's just like oh i didn't even think about that damn a leaderboard's fucking good

1:17:20Oren John:come on oran that's great fucking let's do that might have to like throw all of our episodes in yeah exactly chat gbt just be like you make it work who's the best one who's had the best one it's so so interesting this is gonna be fun but then if you update a bit like it's also thing people will be watching thing for an hour but it's like cool if we took a stretch break and it's like yeah and it's some other you know it's it's shuffleboard or whatever it's just like there's something funny you'd be like all right yeah it's like get that drama gosh you're so you're so right and it's interesting because most 99 % of the pods are so serious there's no sort of not even comedic relief but it's like this is a great place where we we're we still are light-hearted but you're getting a lot of very valuable information one of the youtubes that are doing well like you look at not to harp too much on george and marcus but like they're just following them through a day right it's like people doing stuff is like it's like the background content on the tv like that's sort of where the competition area is for this i think it's like cool the grocery store run the whatever the like oh hey they're also playing a game we're doing extra wire playing pool during it like i think that like natural one more level of dynamic is like we're almost all of this like this kind of content's going it's like it's like the gal who does the uh the interviews with the very famous people at the chicken yeah exactly chicken shop chicken shop yeah it's still it's a podcast i really want to do one i want to i want to do air one basically where i was like cool i want to bring all these traditional i want to bring seth godin to air one that was like where i like really wanted the pod to go like it's one of those ideas that never made it to life that's like all right let's take people out of their element into something with like a crazy setup and be like all right this is a 32 smoothie what do you think what do you think brother yeah you I like it.

1:18:45Oren John:Coconut cream, right? Genius. Yeah, I think we also just, it can feel overwhelming at times with how much, I feel we are great at thinking about all these ideas, but it can be overwhelming. We're like, we're just trying to stay consistent every single week with the pod, plus do everything else that we're doing. But I think like, you really have to have a strong social strategy to grow. If we want to grow the show to where we think it can get to, we have to take the content seriously. Have you guys clipped at all or had anyone clip for you? Yeah, we've had someone cutting, but never like a clip.

1:19:19Yeah, bro, put that shit in WAP with a bounty and put all your episodes up there and have people do that shit for you. That's what everyone's doing. You have to pay them? Yeah, so basically you start a WAP inside WAP. They're little pods that are called WAPs basically. And you say, cool, hey, we'll pay you$1.50 per 1 ,000 views or whatever. There's all kinds of different. Usually they'll be higher. Like, hey, we'll give you 3 ,500 for a million views. I don't know, whatever. There's a bunch of different strategies. here's your whole library here's a training on what we do and we look for and they will literally start an account whenever they post a video on that they put it in like a tracker money's automatically released as stuff hits that tracker and that's how like you know like brez and tgr and like they're all running through that and that's why you because then when you're in tiktok you're inescapable if you follow tgr you're gonna get tgr clip accounts you watch a rob video you're able to rob clip accounts and so that's how they're going so well but since you have that big library potentially viral shit it's really just about getting people into your wop and like having the right incentive that they'll pay the bounty.

1:20:14Didn't even think about that. That is super interesting. Have you, have you experimented with any other like AI clipping things or they don't work well? Yeah. That's easy. It needs to be the kid. It's always about getting a cracked, cracked 18 year old, you know? No, it's so interesting. Cause we were, we were thinking about potentially like experimenting with something like that, but I feel like there's the quality, like maybe. Exactly. Well, it needs to be like kind of funny or kind of out there or kind of whatever. And then when they post it, they just need to understand like have a basic idea of what's happening.

1:20:39um but yeah like a lot of the ai yeah just the editing stuff isn't it isn't right isn't there

1:20:46Oren John:yet yeah it's so interesting yeah we were thinking about trying like uh opus clips yeah we haven't tried it yet but like uh it's you know you can you can get a lot of clips for not that much as far as like podcast clips go do you think that they have to have like b-roll over them and i think like unless to me anything that's amazing always be the outlier if someone's saying some shit that's really compelling, especially if they're recognizable, like you can get some hits out of it. But like if it's, you'll even notice even people there are just like, you got to keep people watching. It's all that three second hook rate too.

1:21:17It's like three second hook rate is the biggest Instagram metric, super similar on TikTok. And it's like, cool, if you haven't swapped the shot to something else that's different in a visual way by second two, you're not going to hit the three second hit rate. That's why you see everyone do the little zoom ins or have the other vlog charts start. And it's just like, podcasts are so not set up to succeed with that metric if you don't have B-roll. Yeah. but also Veo 3 that shit it doesn't have to be like yeah you know like because that's the thing that's why that's what's interesting about this now it's like that's a b-roll machine it's like it just needs a visual right doesn't have to be the best perfect whatever but it's like you know you get the if even if you develop something that's uniquely your own or uniquely 505 or whatever it is like there's just something there do you think people get caught up in

1:21:56Oren John:the perfectionism of everything especially when it comes to a brand somebody somebody like you right like you're obviously very creative you have this vision for what you want for what you want certain things to look like. You have a certain level of quality that you need to hit. But do you think that that can hinder people from being successful? Yeah, it works both ways. 100%. I have all kinds of stuff I made there. I'm like, it's not quite the standard. And should I post it or should I not post it? I don't know. You always have to find where that line is. I think that's the hardest part of all this.

1:22:22It's like, what is good enough in shipping or not? And I've actually found it's much easier as a creator than to do as a brand. But a lot of brands shouldn't have the standard that they have. If you're not a luxury brand, if it's not going to offend somebody that's in your customer base that you

1:22:32Oren John:posted that then it's probably good to go at least test it we talked to gary v about uh he thinks that luxury brands they're so scared of posting like tiktok or lower quality iphone stuff how do you feel about that when it comes to luxury i think as long as the story is told in the right way or an interesting way i think those brands are you're watching like loeve and like people like do their own style on a lot of it and it's just like having your own unique lens i think they just need creatives who are more tapped in which a lot of those brands have it's just enabling them I feel like Burberry's done a good job.

1:23:02Loewe's done a good job. Jugmuth has done a good job of like opening up this new creative universe in their own ways. Balenciaga's done a good job. So it's certainly doable. But even if you keep the high production, like Belmont, which is like a luxury hotel group, and they have like those luxury trains, stuff like that. They do super high production content that's excellent, but they do a lot of it because they know. They're basically spending the money to play the new game the right way. Could they be doing probably just as good on iPhone? Sure, but at least they're like playing the volume game.

1:23:26Yeah. Talk to us about your clothing brand for a second and what made you want to create a clothing brand? So I've had a, I've been like a partner working with a women's wear brand for like six years that I did all the meta ads and creative on all the email marketing. And so like, I'm intimately familiar with the financials of that business. I've just kind of worked pretty deep within it. And so I started getting a following. It was like, cool. I'm interested in like, I have some ideas for this. I know I have the organic reach of it. I know I know the content. I know I know the ads model. I also want to try this out and see what happens.

1:23:53But for me, it's a, it's like an experimental. Like I put out all these different products. I have all these different things. It's like interesting to me to have as a vehicle. Because I feel like any creator who's creative should have a brand. It doesn't have to be like, hey, you want to go build, represent. It should be like, here's my vision. Here's an experimental thing. And if something comes of it, that's what comes of it. So I'm working on that now. I put stuff out. I see what works on ads. I see what works on content. I don't put nearly as much time as I'd like to in it. But it's a vehicle that's there.

1:24:17And my goal is I need to keep this alive. I don't want to lose money. I don't want to invest anything in it above what it took to start it. And that's working. and then you kind of see what works and what doesn't and learn a lot along the way. That's why I released a lot of stuff, which is something I don't recommend 90 % of people do. It's like, cool, I know how to create a lot of stuff. I have a wide audience. I'm not sure what's going to work. I love to make things. I'm just going to make a whole swath. It's not going to be like this sold out in a drop. It's going to be like, let's see what works over time with ads and whatnot.

1:24:40And that's been really revealing and learned a lot about my audience of like, you know, I was like, hey, can I make a brand that may have an aesthetic that works beyond my audience? What's going to work with it? And like what works on ads that I'm in versus not? And so it's kind of like a big experiment. But now I'm like a year or so in. And it's like, cool. Like I have sales off meta ads all the time. Like some of the products are really working. I've also seen my demographic and being like, oh, I actually have a way bigger of a female audience. I thought I did. And like some of these other things where I'm like, okay, now I'm like learning a bit.

1:25:04And I'll move through this era. We'll look at another chapter. But it's like, cool. I'll have a brand for 10 years. Like the more you keep going, especially in fashion, why I know what the women's wear brand was like, all right, the first three years kind of sucked. But year four, year five, okay, now you got 40 ,000, 50 ,000, 60 ,000 customers in the customer base. you can kind of release stuff forever. And like, even if you're not trying to be like, we're scaling this as far as you can, like your cost of customer acquisition just continues to go down. And you kind of build this sustainable thing.

1:25:28And I was like, cool, like if I'm going to keep having an audience, I might as well have a brand I can hold onto. It's been a really interesting process doing it.

1:25:34Oren John:Do you have a North Star for this brand that you started? Not at all. This is purely just like me experimenting without any look or thought on it. It's a lot inspired by like, I feel like the way Virgil Abloh, like did stuff but it's like not a good comp like he was trying to build something a good specific place i like is vicky purely experimental um and yeah so that's an interesting question because like there's not there's nothing else there like it and it's also not a good comp like i wouldn't encourage other people to follow the comp like it's not a repeatable scenario it's just it's an interesting vehicle for me that i'm have a lot of ideas of where it could go and i like having that big amorphous like everyone's always like a brand has to be one thing that scales to x or y or it has to be merch basically i'm like there's kind of an in-between where it's just like this is a creative outlet of a thing that exists.

1:26:17There is a designer, his name is Benjamin Edgar, who makes these really like tasteful, thoughtful, out of the box designs. He releases like one of every once in a while. I really liked his kind of approach, but I'm like less tasteful and like more interested in like objects and like mainstream things and like things that just having a vehicle to sell things I enjoy. And so that was like one piece of inspiration, I guess.

1:26:36Oren John:What's been your favorite part about building your own brand and have you learned anything in the process of building your own brand that you've consulted for these other brands, but maybe you learned something new by doing your own brand yeah i guess uh i was surprised how well the ads with me in them did um that was one thing um where i just hadn't had that same i've never run ads for a brand where they had like founder creator presence or anything like that it's all it's been more more traditional um and like my ads rip and like and that's an interesting interesting caveat i was like oh that's actually really a superpower to be able to drop that stuff in there and like know those go same thing with creative volume like the biggest thing i've learned from this, like a lot of brands I work with are a lot bigger.

1:27:14I've already had something from like from scratch where it's like, man, the amount of assets like really is, is the play. Like I could already see from like where I'm at on meta and like what I sell currently and how many assets I put in every week into ads manager and on organic. It's like, it's really a numbers game of if I wanted to sell as much as I wanted within reason, not talking like a, like eight figure above, like within the like nine figure range, it's purely a volume, a creative volume game. And that's been really interesting to see.

1:27:37Oren John:So is that now when you're talking to brands and giving them advice is is the founder-led content a big piece of the advice really because i don't really work with brands that have that as a option but it's interesting to see in the toolkit have in the back of my mind and it's just a reminder on whitelisting and a few others so i don't think there's been a ton i've taken away it's because it's operating at a small scale but also i really like to still be tactically in stuff when i wasn't no longer working with uh gel blaster i was like intimately in the ad account every day in tiktok with our creators every day talking through strategy it's like cool like having something where i'm still in the ad account so i still I'm in the women's wear ad account, in my ad account, I'm tweaking it, I'm responsible for the result.

1:28:13That's one of the other biggest things. A lot of people that work on these ad accounts, but they're not dollar for dollar fiscally responsible, which gives you another level in the back of your head of being like, I'm spending my money to get a result on the other side. And I need that level of like tenacity to then come into these scenarios and like have conviction in what I'm saying.

1:28:26Oren John:I'm just thinking about my mom has a girl's clothing line and we're doing a lifestyle shoot in a few weeks and she hasn't actually messed around with Facebook ads. and i keep telling her i'm like i don't know much about it but i just know that you're leaving a lot of money on the table but then hearing about how your playbook of okay we have this video shoot we're also gonna be getting photos but having a plan for the bts it's got my mind thinking of like i gotta talk to my mom and have a more dialed of a plan of like going into the shoot yeah the biggest insight haven't worked on women's ads for a long time like fit is everything and women's bodies are so different.

1:29:03Dudes shop differently. A lot of the guys will see someone that looks like them or find a creator that looks like them. Dudes, it's more of a styling issue. It's like, how would I wear this? What do I wear this? What does this work with? Does it work with someone who's tall or short or chubby? There's only so many things. But the women, their bodies are also different. Sizing is also weird brand to brand that showing fit, I feel like, is just a huge component of the sales process.

1:29:21Oren John:Yeah. It's really interesting. Have you found that to be true? Because my mom's, it's like tween. So it's like seven to maybe 14. I've never worked in that in that demographic. What's interesting with guys, like the styling thing is so crucial with guys where it's like, because I'll see, I'll run an ad and guys will buy the fit from the ad. Like not like that the item is like, oh, I'm just going to get that, the blue shirt and the white pants. Got it done. That's the cart. And it's because they just want that shit to be easy. Right. And it's an interesting like consumer behavior, like insight to be like, all right, like, and that's why I do, I do these grids.

1:29:51Like they don't do huge numbers on social, but I put them in email and I put them on social where it's like, here's how to style this item. and I'll just have like a couple things. So I'm always choosing items within it that are like in every guy's wardrobe. It's like black leather jacket, white shirt, like brown shoes. So then you can like see, oh, this is how this would work for my closet. So I've just noticed that's a gate for anything out of the ordinary. Anything that's not like a t-shirt, guys are like, oh.

1:30:09Oren John:Yeah. I need to sign up for that because I always find myself going shopping and I'll find a great piece. I'm like, that's fucking sick. And then I get into my closet. I'm like, I don't know what to pair this with. And so I think smart brands are building out. Like if I had way more time, I would spend much more time on that brand if I had more time but then just like the time to money ratio with creation and stuff is like obviously overly weighted but I feel like most brands like should lean into that where it's like hey guess what like especially for guys stuff it's like alright like choose these five items you have and AI will enable this great like do you have light denim?

1:30:39Do you have dark denim? Do you have baggy utilization? Okay here's like some basics of what works inside these fits is I think something guys will I don't know if they'll go seek it out but they'll certainly if it was like oh it's already in my inbox like am I going to look at it? Yes you know I noticed I did an inside project for a big retailer we're looking at like gen z social insights and one of them was that guys follow male fashion creators that look like them same body type was the number one thing doesn't matter race any of that other stuff and we'll go look at the fits they have in the closet and be like oh okay carlos did this oh i have black pant black shirt whatever like that's like a consumer habit for a younger generation i've done it yeah no same yeah for sure i literally am looking at i want someone that has a very similar body type so it's not even to buy necessarily it's just to be like cool what do i

1:31:18Oren John:have that like it look cool like this guy is there a product you haven't made yet for your brand that you're excited to make in the future yes we're working on um i sold a decent amount of these bags uh to start so i'm working on a bunch i have all these new bags that we created that i'm really excited to do um now that's just a category i really love we spent a ton of time on like doing a bunch of like really high-end stuff for it so i'm really excited to do that but then also just like the complete open i love it being open like i have no i have no predict where this could go or not like we could do whatever like that is an exciting thing to me like just to have a complete vehicle and then to have that vehicle have like all these customers all these emails all the stuff set up so i don't ever have to be like oh let's start like the zero to one is done you know the bags is crucial for guys i'm like dude we only got so much pocket space here we got guys bags are wax so you'll see we did like uh yeah we had like the bag i carry i sold a lot of these shoe bags which is just like a really kind of simple put in your luggage whatever but i'll notice a lot of people were like throwing their laptop in them like throwing stuff in them they just want like a carry bag so i put a strap i made them less like logo forward and we did those like textured and i also did like it's like an over the shoulder like not quite messenger not quite like it's just like something in between there and even like duffel everything's just not quite right guys bags just aren't quite it suck dude um so i think i'm taking three stabs at it i'm always like a stabs guy i'm like i've never i can't tell you what the perfect product's going to be but i will design five or six things we'll get three of them i think are going to win and i'm going to go work real hard and then one of them will go and even that's the same thing with all the clothing whatever i know some of it's going to like not hit but that's like how i feel like it has to be at least for someone with my like framework bro see i wanted that sick bag when we were in that store in new york and in 07 they had a cool little like yeah it was like a what's that called what's that thing called you know what i'm talking about it's like a tote it's like a tote right okay but i wanted a cool like gym bag bro but because all the gym bags suck and i have like a crappy one that was gifted to me that i just use every day but then i see some of the guys at our gym i'm like i check out this other bag that this dude had the gym yo just curious like what's that bag that you got there he goes it's tom ford i go of course it is of course it's fucking tom ford you fucking bastard and i looked up it was it was very you feel like you could pull off a tote i think i could rip a tote okay i can rip a tote i did a leather tote we did like an oversized leather tote i was thinking pause you think i can't rip a fucking tote is that why you're saying that no i feel like i could rip a tote i think you could i think honestly okay and or i'd love to hear your take on this when it comes like the whole fit look i'm like when it comes to styling right like somebody like brayden he might be a little bit on the fence about rocking a tote yeah do you think it just comes to confidence of like i'm rocking this yeah i think at this point it's completely that dude yeah i appreciate that dude you gotta start rocking a tote i feel like i could yeah i feel like i could play i need i need a bag though that has a little bit of uh you got total community goods matcha you know i'm saying you i'm projecting a little bit i don't know if i could rock so yeah i feel like most guys underthink anything that they could yeah yeah i do see we we went into we went into in new york went into john elliott and this one pair of pants i was like man i don't know if i could pull those off put them on put on my i was like yeah dude swipe the card brother yeah no dance swipe the card so funny what are you trying to work on in these next six to twelve months what's something top priority could be a couple things but i'm trying to keep my head above water yeah uh um no i'm trying to just getting workflow better at juggling all these things i have all these things they all make money they're all awesome what's like do i keep them all going you zone in on some or the other really it's like a life prioritization yeah that's that's like the hardest thing to struggle is i just have no like even like i'd love to spend more time on that brand but would i really love to do that compared to like i'm a part of this other big project or compared to i don't know you're in a in a tough a hard position but not a bad position to be in yeah it's just so odd like so it's like all these these are like existential problems like everything else is wonderful um and so it's just like yeah yeah, these are all like, you have a lot of questions like, what do you want to do?

1:35:04And who do you want to be? And what those years look like? And even that balancing that with parenthood. So yeah, so all my issues are existential. Life is really good besides that. I love that. What's some advice if you could go back and talk to your 18 year old self? What would you say? Oh man, I wouldn't change. But yeah, just like nothing that would change it. Just advice. Like you wouldn't, nothing that would change the journey. Yeah. Like, oh man, there's a lot of my advice with like, he's like stronger. I got married relatively young. I would encourage people to do that. I feel like the older you get, the more complicated I guess and have a lot of people have seen that in that scenario like kids is of is another thing where I just like having kids like along for the journey and like and not separating your kids out from the stuff you do like everyone will always be like oh they don't talk to their kids about work they don't bring them along and do X or Y like bringing your kid into like everything like our kid will like be at the function with us and like be great so I think there's a a lot of advice I'd have is be like around around like family and participation and what people think they want or need or when the right time is where I feel like it's so much easier to go through life like with a unit you guys are working together on you know I love it.

1:36:02Oren, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. This has been another episode of the 505 Podcast. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, leave us a like, and we'll see you all next week. Peace.